Well, for the english version of 7.62, it seems it's now scheduled for february 2009 ... if not later. It's not clear why they delay it this much, considering they said the translation job was recently finished. Probably some trouble with a promised patch, and perhaps even a merging with 7.62 - Reloaded, their strange stand alone add-on (some kind of mission pack it seems) that they talked about several monthes ago.

The tactical AI sucks, but that has always been the case with Jagged Alliance games. Buying generic mercs in squads to defend your holdings is better than training militia IMO; upgrading your holdings with various thingies that increase your revenue is a good idea. The combat is really no different to JA2, except better statistics for the various weapons (ranges are increased considerably; much better effects on targets for grenades, thrown and launched). Whilst it's not one shot kill to the torso, it gives an adequate representation of the lethality of the various weapons (wear a helmet always, for example if you're crouched and taking pot-shots at the enemy, one lucky or not so lucky round coming back at you may just cripple/kill you). I haven't seen night combat, and I don't think that it's in (a shame for those who like such in JA2); movement across the map isn't as good as JA2; it's not cut up into grid squares, only location to location via paths. Not much NPC interaction, and it's a big step back compared to JA2 in this regard; the voice recordings suck for the NPCs compared to JA2 too. Russian to English translations are commonly in error in the text.

It's a good game, but I can't help but wonder how it'd have turned out in the hands of Sci-Tech plus the Russian developers.

It's worth buying if you like JA2 IMO. I haven't really had this much fun with a game since playing JA2.

The weapons the enemies carry seem to be uniform, which I like, i.e., various AKs for soldiers where I'm up to, rather than a massive mix, even though you can purchase quite a few types of weapons around the same time; the AKs put up a decent challenge compared to the current Western weapons.

The government troops have Warsaw Pact and 100series weapons.
The mercs belonging to the guy who hires you have modern Nato weapons (SA80s, etc...)and armour.
The tribal/bandit faction has a lot of older guns but more mercs, afaik.

It's been a few months since I played the game, so take this with a grain of salt.

Well, my first post is in a area that hasn't been posted for quite some time...typical me.

Anywho, Hired Guns is ok...so far...if given some more time to test and try out certain aspects of the game I think it could have been way better, given that the graphics (though not up to today's standard) look pretty damn good.

As noted above I think its funny to see the Text area's but at the same time a bit amateur-ish, I have the 4x4 UAZ offroad game for my son from Russia, and there isnt really any flaws to the speech/text (speech tends to have a hint of Russia dialect to it, but I am not picky) but mostly it small grammar mistakes...along with that have you noticed that in the IMP knock off the one question asks you, about virgin sacrifice. "sacrifice (1) virgin a month (not over 18) for 30 calender days" I seriously Laughed at that...I fear clickin that answer, I would feel in the pedofelia range...haha, but its ONE virgin a month...then it has that 30 day thing...I mean the questions arent anything special, and you can even smell out the JA2 themed questions that have slight changes to them.

But I noticed that the question affect your character in no way, meaning I get a different character-ization each time, even for same answers,as far as the mental state of your character "coward, psycho, etc" but it seems to stay the same as far as traits "Night Ops, Auto Weap". I just wish there was a dual weld style to it...but due to the design of dropping your primary hand weapon to the second slot (where your 2nd weapon would be if it were dual) is a sign of lowering/hiding your weapon. So the dual pistol idea is dead...

Honestly for the past 3 hours of play I got really nowhere and died ALOT. Seems a bit tougher than I expected...I mean a "weak" classed Marauder kicked me and I laid on the floor bleeding slowy to death.

There is IMO alot of great ideas they put into the game, and like posted above I could only imagine this game if Sir-Tech had been involved, alongside the Russians with it. I think it could have been very promising.

As for my past 3hrs of playing I got really no where to test out weapons, as it seems no matter what I do the online store keeps offering me crap gear, like the intial stuff....I also find its quite annoying when I do see a rifle I want but cant afford it, and say in a game day or less I can yet its all new crap, and the rifle is gone.

Well thats my cents of input, glad I picked it up bargin style....but still fun, I am sure it will be a hell of alot more fun once I get a better hang of it...kinda like Brigade E5...kinda hoping to see 7.62...

After buying the game a couple month ago I finally tryed playing it for real (finished a long JA campaign)and , hey I'm having some fun with it.

First of all if you are planing to try it don't bother with vanila version and grab reeinforce mod as a starter, it mainly fixes the most anoying things about the game, it gives better camera control it tunes AI markmanship to be equal to the mercs, increases ammo availability in game, reduces enemy outstanding nade trowing skills and makes DJ (BR) actually usefull plus it have some atchament tuning and some more new guns.

This is clearly a JA3 that stoped beeing developed and was lauchend as it was, it got some serious flaws like mercs not beeing able to hop fences but can jump on crates and climb to roofs ??? they even jump trough windowns but fences no. :whoknows:, theres no nigth day cycle mercs atributes and pricing seems like was randomly made (most expensive merc is not the most experienced and have mid table stats)voice acting is very weak still it made me smile several times, text translation is bad and AI is... well is not, they simply rush in tough they are fairly good equiped and have uber stats so they shoot damn good and trow nades like maniacs if you fail to cover or prone after shooting they'll hit you hard if they can see you, UI is weak specially compared to NIV. Many people people refered line of sight isues I thing its more a camera isue, I tuned my camera so I can go almost to 1st person view and wen my mercs refuse to shoot and enemy that he sees is because something is in the way, for instance the enemy is behind a tree and the merc can only see the tip of the weapon or a knee or wen due to terrain he can only see the head and I'm aiming at torso.Ah and enemys seem ony only count as seen at normal vision range but if you have line of sight most time the merc will get the shoot in if he have a scope even if the target is greyed out, the best sniper sistems will easly hit enemys on the other side of the map. Merc speaciality mostly are broken only a couple work in game same with personality traits. CTD's aren't that bad as that usually happen wen exiting sectors and the game auto saves prior to that.

Still theres a lot of cool details and some fun gaming to be had, destroayble buildings got to love it, I just love to make holes in some walls with .50's, to clear enemys inside a shack with your machine guner or to make the wooden roof of an house go down on the heads of the bad guys inside with a well placed 40mm grenade. The graphics are good enough, and got some detail. Allways max aim is a nice litle feature and the aim guru thing is rather nice and you can really see the efects of shooting diferent body parts of enemy's, they drop the guns wen shot in the arms they will limp or will be unable to get up after beeing shot in the legs, head shots sometimes pop theyr helmets out, .50 sniper shots at torso of vested enemys that trow them down.

Lets face it it's not a good game but IMO its surely worth some time , it's not a JA clone it's an unfinished JA3 it even got Fox, yep yep I found her you can find her too ( tip - check the necks)

Just finished ragging on 7.62 so may as well slap this bitch around some too. Tried this with the 1.07.whatever patch. Don't think I'll bother trying the 1.08.

Start with something positive. Most of the games files are in XML so modding is fairly simple. The scripts are in Lua. There's quite a few unused weapon models and graphics that were left in if you want more guns. There's four factions so there's some replay value if you like the game. Graphics are more than good enough for me.

Translation is crap. I was hoping this would have been one area Matrix improved. In all seriousness I think the developers did the translation themselves through Babelfish. The only thing worse than the translation is the alleged voice acting. The mercs are souless with just a few and frequently stupid lines. The worst is the female mercs who when you click on them make a sound like they're playing with themselves. My advice is hit the mute button on all your mercs as soon as you hire them.

What there isn't is a map editor so you're stuck with what you get. Noticeably absent are CQB maps. If you poke around in the files you'll notice the leftover JA bits like merc names here and there. Oddly enough the quiz and activation code that is straight copy from JA2 is left in. Sadly among the leftovers are several skills. For example the Lockpicking trait appears to be active but you won't find a single lock in the game.

Quite simply the AI sucks like Electrolux. It's good at two things, throwing grenades and healing each other. Unless you consider running blindly to their death a good thing but believe me that gets old. Firefights hardly ever happen since the majority of the time the AI doesn't shoot. If you check the Matrix forum someone was working on the AI so there may be hope.

Now odds are you'll get waxed the first few times you try this game. May sound like a contradiction but once you get rifles it's all down hill. I suspect a good portion of the problem is the camoflage and sighting system. Oddly enough your camo value is only increased by wearing armor. Now my mercs on screen representation looks like they're wearing olive drab or khaki but in the developers mind apparently they're all dressed like Don Johnson in Miami Vice. 0% camoflage baby. At the start of the game the best you're probably going to do is a steel pot and camo vest/flak jacket giving you a fairly low camo rating. The files don't spell out exactly how the LOS works but it seems to be set view distance modified by your stance, moving/stationary and then camo value. So at the start you'll have a combination of high visibilty and crappy, short ranged weapons working against you. Let the AI see you and get close and you'll get shot or more likely naded. The grenade throwing has been toned down but they're still damn accurate when they get the chance to use them.

If I were developer I would have started out with a base camo value for fatigues and then had armor give +/- bonus. But that's just me.

Knock off a couple sectors start getting everyone rifles and a decent camo value and the game becomes a turkey shoot. Get on the high ground and stay prone and I don't think the AI can see you. They all just run blindly at the sound of the shots to be mowed down. And if somehow one does make it they usually won't shoot. Out of breath, craptastic AI or both? Yes, the fatigue/breath thing has been improved and yes it still sucks at times.

Speaking of weapons the developers let their nationalism get the better of them. Russian made weapons are the best weapons in the game. They shoot faster and farther than those inferior products of the capitalist system. Capitalist? Wait a minute...nevermind. Anyway it's just a game and just expect to packing Russian hardware.

And then we have the sniper rifles, something is wrong here. As others have reported on the forums you just can't seem to hit with some of them. The Enforcer and SVD work sorta OK but with the PSG you're lucky to hit 2 out of 20 shots. Even the Enforcer and SVD are outshot at long ranges by tricked out assualt rifles. The other bug with them is the FOV. A sniper rifle is supposed to cut your FOV down to 40 degrees and let you see twice as far as normal. In reality your more likely to spot enemies at at the very edges of your normal vision. For example you'll take a shot and suddenly you spot an enemy off your right shoulder. Best use I found for sniper rifles was to have the person with them spin around like an idiot to spot targets for the assault rifle armed troops that can actually hit them.

Grenade launchers also have issues. For one they're inaccurate and fire on a flat trajectory. No shooting over obstacles here. A few times I had grenades "disappear". I shot, apparently missed and there wasn't any explosion. Either I really, really missed or they're a little buggy.

As long as we're talking combat might as well mention that the LOF help is bugged. I think this is also part of the problem with the AI not shooting. Several times I've watched the AI make it's 3 aiming attempts, change from kneeling to standing and try again, then kneel try yet again and use up all their AP. My turn comes up and the merc they were aiming shoots them down without a hitch. Your mercs are supposed to tell you if their LOF is blocked but a lot of the time they're just wrong. They'll complain when there's nothing visible in the way and not say a word when every shot hits the ground in front of them. Piece of advice if you plan on firing from the prone position you need to be on the downslope. If you're on the ridge or behind it expect to kicking up some dirt even though they won't tell you that.

"Africa land of the midnight sun." Another of those not finished bits is nighttime. The hours for nighttime are defined in the files and there is a visibility penalty but graphically there's no difference. Midnight looks the same as noon. I personally don't care for super dark games but this is a tad much in the opposite direction. Need an Unfinished Business joke in here somewhere. The whole thing gives me the impression that it's an alpha or beta that was kicked out the door(minus the JA2 bits) when SF pulled the plug.

The maps, except for the lack of CQB, are actually pretty good with two exceptions. Most of them are believable looking large maps with varied elevations and terrain. The two I don't like are the classic "Let's challenge the player by dropping them right on top of the enemies". Luckily the AI sucks so bad they're still pretty easy.

Like I said at the start there's four joinable factions but the Marauder and maybe Butsi faction have issues. When their patrols take a location they don't change ownership properly. If you move into one of these limbo sectors you'll be trapped. The game thinks it's a hostile sector so you have to fight but there's no one fight so catch 22.

If you're interested in any other bugs check the Matrix forums. Supposedly there's going to be one more patch. Some of Erik's comments gave me the impression the developers haven't been a joy to work with so we'll see what comes.

If the game had a decent AI it'd be an OK-ish title. As it I'd pass at $30 or if you're really curious kill a kitten.

It's Fathers day here and my youngest has presented me with ......... Hired Guns !
The blurb on the front says.......... Hired Guns has everything that Jagged Alliance has and MORE ! Wow , I cannot wait to rip open the packaging and dive right in .
Thanks young'un , Dad will get onto this , ermmm , next week possibly
Kidding................

loaded it up just now , dropped into a firefight with crappy weapons , took a beating , but will give it another go tomorrow , and , yes , there are plenty on JA bits left in ( how do they get away with this ? ) , only scratched at the first bit so no complaints yet...........
(also loaded up ufo extraterrestrials which came today , not enough time in a working day *sigh*)

Ah yes, De Hired Guns. I have it on my hard-drive. Counquered the train-station on it and left it there as a punishment for annoying gameplay. Even though a gaming-magazine I get every sunday gave it a 72/100 I say even with the high graphics, it's nothing compared to to Jagged Alliance 2 with 1.13.

Seriously...

*Graphics&Physics are pretty nice: Trees and grass get flattened by grenades and other explosions. Also buildings demolish in a "Fun" way to watch. Also shadows are drawn nicely: Every merc, object etc has it's own shadow that adjusts with the clock.

*Enemy is ALWAYS a one step ahead of you. Even if you start a conflict from a confined space, the enemy comes in, destroys your team and then you quick-load and try the same on other sector. The process repeats.

*If you finally conquer your first sector, you get immediate counter-attack, barely when you even have any mercs (Milita) in there. And this was just the beginning of the game.

I didn't play it too long and for a reason: There was no reason. Jagged Alliance even as Vanilla, kicks Hired Guns ass 6-0.

Though I hope the new Jagged Alliance combines the graphics of Hired Guns, with the gameplay of Jagged Alliance 2. And they would really try to learn a thing or two about 1.13: Such gameplay would affect the whole world of strategy gaming.

This game is now selling for $10 at GameStop. For that price, I figured it may be worth a shot. Man I was wrong. I knew this game would be bad, but this game is awful to the sake of not even being remotely enjoyable.

I played Brigade E5 in 2007, and I played through 7.62 with the BFX mod last month. Both were bugged out of the box, but could be patched and modded to a playable state. As bugged and soulless as those games were, they were decent games in their own right. Hired Gun does absolutely nothing well, except for teasing the player with some blatent rip offs of JA2.

I could go on for pages about however seemingly everything in this game is wrong, but I think most of it has already been covered in this thread. The big dealbreaker though is that its tactical engine is utter crap. Yes, it's turn-based; but it fails in so many ways.

First off, during combat, the camera doesn't jump to the shooter or target but instead stays glued exactly where you left it. Hence you actually have to manually scroll and find where gunfire is coming from.

Second, line of fire checks don't work. You'll try to fire prone from a hillside and spend about three turns figuring out that your rounds are all impacting a rock 10 meters in front of you. The inept camera doesn't help this problem (see item 1.)

Then finally, NO INTERRUPTS/REACTION FIRE. Seriously, every turn-based engine since 1994 has had interrupts as a key feature. Playing with any sort of tactical sense is impossible without them. When I realized this, I lost any hope for this game.

Reading these reviews again , after some hours playing ( my version 1.08), the buggyness hasn't reared it's ugly head so far , graphics are really good , sounds are superb, difficulty IS hard (even playing on Easy to get a real feel for game)still , I would urge you guys to try it cheaply , persevere and it will be worth a few bucks , but it ISN'T as good as JA 1.13 for options and no modding capability .

First off, during combat, the camera doesn't jump to the shooter or target but instead stays glued exactly where you left it. Hence you actually have to manually scroll and find where gunfire is coming from.

I usually zoom-out the (modified settings) camera out to reveal almost whole map when enemy turn starts. This helps a lot.

nsaenz

Second, line of fire checks don't work. You'll try to fire prone from a hillside and spend about three turns figuring out that your rounds are all impacting a rock 10 meters in front of you. The inept camera doesn't help this problem (see item 1.)

True, but fiddling around with camera settings file helps this somewhat also. I.e. you'll can see elevatios much better if lower camera angles are allowed.

nsaenz

Then finally, NO INTERRUPTS/REACTION FIRE. Seriously, every turn-based engine since 1994 has had interrupts as a key feature. Playing with any sort of tactical sense is impossible without them. When I realized this, I lost any hope for this game.

Well, I noticed that kind of ammo has more bullets in a magazine than another type of ammo for the same weapon (e.g. 9x19 AP has 15 bullets while 9x19 OC has 20). But, the weapon loaded with it doesnt use it all but only how much goes normally.
My guess would be either the ammo is for another weapon and unknown type, or maybe it's "overclocked" magazine with extra bullets that fits weapons modified for extra large magazines. So either I haven't found the weapon for it or I need attachment for a weapon (in example's case, for Berreta 92F I think, I'm away so this is only as far as I know, remember about guns)

When unloading OC magazine from my Berreta it changed to a suitable 15 bullet magazine 9x19 OC, so I can assume that magazine is actually for a different weapon. Probably another version of Berreta that supports 20 bullet magazines. (Devs said there are over 150 weapons in the game)

Unfortunately my google search yields nothing about OC bullets... Closest thing would be OWC which are meant for paper targets but I doubt OC in the game is OWC because OC "does +5 dmg"...

I started playing it last week. By now I've spent fifteen hours on it. Maybe I am not a perfectionist, but I love it.
First of all: Africa. I've grown with "The Wild Geese" and "The dogs of war" (the book) and to me mercs=africa.
Second: the 3D graphics. With a good PC you can appreciate it and I was bored of the outdated graphic of JA2.
Third: line of sight is very realistic. It is necessary to set the value of the camera, but you can find how on this forum or on matrix forum. I read that sometimes a merc see an anemy but can't shoot him. I discovered the reason: he see only part of the enemy. To shoot him you must aim what you see.
Fourth: combats, with the Fined tuned 1.7 mod are very enjoyable.
Fifth: a lot of freedom in the plot.

A lot of criticism I have read about it are true (bugs not idea of cth when you aim to enemy, no night and day cycle, ecc.), but if this comunity could do a quarter of the work done for JA2, I think that this game would become the perfect heir of the second.

Hired Guns question time. I bought the game and after patching it didn't have that many CTD but when I did the CTD weren't game breakers.

The issue/question I have is I don't know What The Chuck I am supposed to be doing. I have taken about 10 or so sectors (down to the shipyard and across to the base).

What am I supposed to do with the natives on the western side of the map. Met them, have to rescue someone (I think) but have no clue where). I took over a mine/quarry and they had some issue I was supposed to resolve but I had no clue what I was supposed to do (one of my options was to shoot the foreman or something).

Money is another issue. Not sure what I have to do other than to keep taking sectors. I have no clue if doing the sector upgrades are worth it or not (a couple of times my mercs bailed on me because I ran out of moola). I have read some of the Matrix forums about 6 months or so ago and one guy kept scoffing about how easy the game was and how for him and how money quit being an issue after the 2nd or 3rd battle.

Game wise the LOS is tad frustrating but since I have played similar 3D games like Mechwarrior 2 and other Real Time Strategy that use a similar map/control layout I didn't have that much of an issue.

One thing that constantly saved my bacon was when I arrived in a sector the first thing I would do is a quick scan and then quickly get my guys to the higher ground.

I liked how, unlike in JA2, grenades are killers and the terrain affecting where the grenades rolled cool.

But as I said the kicker for me was I didn't have a clue what I was doing except kicking arse and taking names.